


hold me when i fall away from the lines.

by carrotstix



Series: starlight. [5]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, And Surprise! Maggie Has An Actual Sister, Both Lena And Maggie Need Hugs, But She Also Has A Lena, F/F, Maggie Is The Big Sister This Time
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-06
Updated: 2017-12-06
Packaged: 2019-02-11 09:46:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12932661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carrotstix/pseuds/carrotstix
Summary: "When she was a kid, her father used to teach her about Gryffindor pride. How they were best house, the best students, the bestpeople.Hufflepuffs, he said, were oblivious, too optimistic. They were nice, he said, but ditzy. And Ravenclaws were the opposite, a house full of people that were smart, but aloof. He told her how they were cold, rude, and thought they were better than everyone. Gryffindors, in his book, were perfect, a mix of both of the houses. They were warm, but bright, and they were so, so brave. He talked about Gryffindors like they were storybook heroes.'What about Slytherins, papi?' She would ask, and his face would twist.'Slytherins are evil,mija,' he’d reply. “'Stay away from theserpientes, they bring nothing but trouble.' "or, Maggie Sawyer, and roughly a thousand words for each of her years at Hogwarts, running (for the most part) parallel to ‘made of starlight.’





	hold me when i fall away from the lines.

**Author's Note:**

> surprise, the first year i wrote from this was year six, and then i literally just wrote random scenes from each year until it was done. (actually, the first line i wrote from this was the last line, and i wrote it before i had even finished alex’s pov.) also, if any spanish in this is wrong, i apologize, i did my best to combine google translate with what i remembered from school

_first._

Maggie’s first year starts like this:

Maggie’s brother Tomas smirks when he leads her through the wall to Platform Nine and Three Quarters. Their parents smile at them before they disappear, their youngest sister Jamie clinging to their mother’s hand as she waves goodbye, bouncing on the toes of her feet. Maggie offers her one last toothy grin before following after Tomas with her luggage.

Coming out on the other side, she’s surrounded by other students and their families. It’s a sea of faces she doesn’t recognize, but she follows her brother anyway, lets him lead her onto the train and into a compartment.

He lets her sit with him and his friends. She doesn’t really know them, but they’re nice enough to her, offering her smiles and advice for her first year. All of Tomas’ friends are Gryffindors, and he grins as she promises her that she will be, too. After all, the Sawyers have become a line of proud Gryffindors. Sure, they may not be pureblood, they may not be well known among the wizarding community, but they were Gryffindors, through and through, and Maggie was set to be the next one in the family line.

And she’s not nervous, she isn’t. She spends the entire train ride being pointedly _not nervous!_ until she finds herself standing with all the other first years at the front of the Great Hall, staring at a wrinkled, old hat on a stool.

She has to wait, of course, to be called up, because the S in her last name puts her near the end of the alphabet. The longer the sorting goes on that she isn’t called, she finds herself fidgeting more and more, nerves she didn’t even know she had coming up to rear their ugly heads.

When they finally call her name, she rushes up to the stool and throws herself down without hesitation. There’s a loud ‘whoop!’ in the crowd that she recognizes as her brother, and as silly as it is, it gets her to smile as they lower the hat onto her head.  
The second it settles down over her hair, she feels oddly exposed. _It’s in my brain,_ she thinks, and as if it heard her, a laugh echoes through her head.

“You could call it that,” the hat tells her, and she shivers. It hums in response, and it sounds almost amused.

“Another Sawyer,” it continues. “That must make you Margarita, then, hm? Ah yes, I can already feel your passion, your courage. You’re brave, a little fearless, Maybe just a bit too reckless, like your brother. You’ll fit in Gryffindor, for sure, just like the rest of your family line.”

At that, a little breath of air escapes her, and it turns into a relieved laugh as she hears it’s call of _‘Gryffindor!’_ fill the room. The hat is lifted from her head, leaving Maggie to make her way over to table of it’s choosing, where a pretty girl introduces herself as Cameron Chase, the Gryffindor prefect. Behind her, Maggie can see Tomas, beaming at her, and when she smiles back, he offers her a thumbs over before beckoning her over.

He wraps an arm around her shoulder when she sits down beside him, and she all but basks in the warmth that floods the table.

After all, Maggie was a Sawyer. There was no reason to worry anyway.

-

She settles into Hogwarts well enough.

Her classes are interesting, far more than the subjects she had to study in the schools she went to before Hogwarts. She prefers Herbology, likes the plants and the dirts beneath her fingers. There’s something grounding in nature, and she finds beauty in the way it overlaps with the non-magical world in ways.

At meals, she sits with her brother, his small circle friends, and his friend’s younger siblings. Even though she doesn’t know all of them well, and even if she still feels a little uncomfortable and unfamiliar around them, there’s also something very reminiscent of home. Not all of Tomas’ friends speak Spanish, but Jon and Eliza do, as well Jon’s siblings and Eliza’s sister, and occasionally, they’ll start to switch between languages, It reminds Maggie of her family, her father’s accent and the way mother would wish her goodnight.

She doesn’t really make friends of her own, though. Her family had always taught her to interact within her house, and, for the most part, only her house. When she was a kid, it made sense to her, but being here at school, it feels incredibly limiting. There’s so many kids, so many other first years, but somehow, the Gryffindor house seems small, suffocating, like a box she has to be shoved into.

(Sometimes, she sees groups of kids from other houses, different colors all mingled together, and it makes her want.)

-

Maggie’s first year ends like this:

Lex Luthor goes insane, and everything building inside of him cracks open. The school goes into lockdown and Maggie ends up locked in the Gryffindor common room with several other students from her house, the prefects guarding the door to make sure nobody else gets in.

She remembers being scared, and hating it. Fear made her feel weak, vulnerable, as if she didn’t really belong in Gryffindor. She remembers Tomas trying to offer hear a smile, but she could see the shake in his eyes, the way he would bite his lip as he glanced towards the door, and it made her feel better.

After all, Tomas was one of the bravest people she knew. And if he was scared, then she could be, too.

(In the end, nobody comes to attack the Gryffindor common room. Clark Kent beats Lex Luthor, the latter gets carted off to Azkaban, and everything turns out okay.

Okay, that is, if you can find it within yourself to ignore that one dead student, that one body lying in the halls with blank, unseeing eyes and a missing heartbeat.)

 

 

_second._

Jamie hugs her tight when they say goodbye at the train station.

Her sister is getting bigger, older, closer to her own time at Hogwarts. Still, for Jamie, it’s not close enough, and she cries a little at the train station, but Maggie holds her tight and promises to be back to see her at Christmas.

Tomas has been allowed to get a pet just in time for his sixth year, a downy brown owl named Huck, under the conditions that he and Maggie used it to send letters back and forth to their parents. Huck becomes the star of their compartment on the train, as for some reason, all of Tomas’ friends seem to be enraptured with the bird.

Maggie thinks he’s alright, sure, but she’s much more excited for her sixth year to come around, so she can get a pet of her own. She’s always wanted a cat, but her parents had never been big on the idea, so they’d convinced her to wait until her sixth year to get one of her own.

(She doesn’t realize her parents won’t be buying anything for her after the summer that follows her fourth.)

-

Maggie is thirteen years old when she comes to accept, or at least acknowledge, she’s gay.

She’s had inklings for a while, but it was something she pushed away because it was easier to just not think about it. It’s becoming harder to avoid it, though, when she finds herself staring after Cameron Chase, now the Head Girl, whenever she sees her walk past. Or when her brother teases her for sitting with his friend Toby’s younger brother at meals. But Daniel Vasquez is gangly and a little awkward, and she definitely prefers his sister, Susan, anyway.

A part of her wants to tell Tomas. After all, her older brother is the closest thing she has to a best friend, but she holds back, because something in her gut tells her to. Instead, she files it away in her brain, keeps the knowledge of her newfound sexuality all to herself.

It’s easier, she thinks, for it to be a secret. It’s easier when it’s just hers to think about.

(She thinks she made the right call when suddenly, Tomas stops talking to his friend Jon, and Maggie sees said former friend holding hands with a Hufflepuff boy in the hallway.

They make eye contact, and when he looks at her, there’s something unreadable in his eyes.)

-

(The latest gossip around the school is that Lex Luthor’s little sister’s come to the castle.

The rumors are flying about her. Some say she’s a maniac, trying to finish what her brother started. They’ve called her names, leveled stares at her, acted as if she had already started throwing curses in the hallway.

But Maggie?

Maggie just thinks she looks young.)

-

She’s just trying to leave her Defense Against The Dark Arts class when she literally crashes into Alex Danvers, the girl who’s going to turn her entire life around.

She doesn’t know it at the time. What she knows is that she’s on her way out the door when someone smacks into her, sending her back a couple of feet while whoever hit her falls back onto the floor.

She’s stunned for a moment, before she notices the girl, sitting on the floor. “Are you okay?” Maggie asks, offering her a hand to stand up, and the girl grabs it, pushing herself off the ground and dusting herself off.

“I’m fine, thanks.”

Maggie feels her face growing warm, because oh, this girl is cute and she’s just standing there, staring at her. There’s a long, pregnant pause before the girl says something Maggie doesn’t really here before Lucy Lane, of all people, is whisking her away and up the hallway.

Maggie shakes her head to clear her thoughts, collecting her books and herself before leaving the empty classroom.

(She doesn’t hear it, but the teacher glances at her as she leaves, her reddening cheeks and her near dazed look, and snorts.)

-

(She bumps into Tomas’ old friend Jon in the hallway later that afternoon.

And by bumps, of course, she runs into him trying to get to class on time after being held up by staring after a pretty girl at the end of her last period. She’s speed walking through the hall, head down, and she smacks right into him, bouncing off and barely staying on her feet.

She glances up, and is dimly shocked to realize it’s Jon, and the the expression on her face is mirrored on her own. He greets her under his breath, apologizes, and slides around her to leave as if it’s nothing.

At first, she doesn’t say anything, but there’s a little question with large implications rolling around in her head. After a long second, she spins on her heels, calling out Jon’s name. He stops, turns to look back at her.

“Why don’t you and Tomas talk anymore?”

Jon’s face twists, a bittersweet kind of sad, and he smiles. “You’ve seen him, Maggie,” he replies, and they both know the he isn’t Tomas. “You know why.”

And as he walks away, Maggie thinks that she does know why, but now she wishes she didn’t.)

 

 

_third._

The cute girl Maggie ran into at the end of last year turns out to be her partner this year for Potions. The teacher calls her Alexandra Danvers, but she insists she only goes by Alex, a sentiment that is reinforced when Lucy Lane walks by and, overhearing their conversation, calls Alex by her full name. This, of course, earns Lucy one of the most intense glares Maggie has ever seen, but somehow, the other girl just laughs as she makes her way back up the aisle to her own seat.

She likes Alex, though. Alex is smart, witty, and her cry sense of humor never fails to make Maggie laugh. Besides her intelligence, she’s nothing like the stereotype of Ravenclaw her father tells her about.

(When she was a kid, her father used to teach her about Gryffindor pride. How they were best house, the best students, the best people.

Hufflepuffs, he said, were oblivious, too optimistic. They were nice, he said, but ditzy. And Ravenclaws were the opposite, a house full of people that were smart, but aloof. He told her how they were cold, rude, and thought they were better than everyone. Gryffindors, in his book, were perfect, a mix of both of the houses. They were warm, but bright, and they were so, so brave. He talked about Gryffindors like they were storybook heroes.

“What about Slytherins, papi?” She would ask, and his face would twist.

“Slytherins are evil, _mija,”_ he’d reply. “Stay away from the _serpientes_ , they bring nothing but trouble.”)

-

Maggie’s on her way back to her dorms when she sees it.

It, of course, being Siobhan Smythe and one of her cronies. From the looks of it, they’re closing in on some poor kid, but Maggie’s too short and too far away to see who it is. She doesn’t really have to wonder who, though, because when she gets close enough to her Siobhan, she answers the question without it being asked.

“Oh, I was just wondering,” the girl says, the sneer obvious in her words, even though she tries to play it off as innocence. “When are you going to pledge your loyalty to the death eaters, Luthor? I’m sure they’re all just waiting to put a dark mark on your pretty little arm, aren’t they?”

“You wouldn’t want to keep them waiting,” the other adds. “Would you?”

(So they’re picking on Lena Luthor, then. Maggie doesn’t know her, not really, but she knows of her. Slytherin, small, quiet, keeps her head down.

If it weren’t for the target on her back she calls a last name, Siobhan likely wouldn’t even see her.)

Maggie shakes her head, straightens her back and stalks forward. “Why don’t you ask your mom, Smythe?” She interrupts. “I’ve heard she was at the last meeting this summer. Then again, any sort of social function is an excuse to leave the house and escape you, isn’t it?”

It’s a low blow, bringing up her mom. In the Wizarding community, Ciara Smythe was said to have disinterest in her family, or anything other than herself. Recently, the rumor mill had started churning out snippets of stories claiming the woman was involving herself in various Death Eater projects, and looking at the sting that crosses over Siobhan’s face, there’s got to be truth to something there, because Maggie can tell she hit a nerve.

A tense moment passes where nobody moves, save for the way Siobhan curls her first a couple of times before snarling and turning away, storming past Lena and shoving into her on her way down the hallway, all without another word. The other girl follows, just as silent, and Lena looks shocked, near gaping.

Maggie shoves her hands in her pockets, approaching her. “Are you okay?” She asks.

“Um, yeah,” Lena answers, as if she’s surprised at the question. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” Maggie replies. “Siobhan’s a bitch. I’m Maggie Sawyer.”

“Lena Luthor,” the younger girl echoes, even if they both know it’s a little redundant, but Maggie still laughs, smiles.

(Later, when Lena walks away, she has a funny feeling that this isn’t the last time they’ll be speaking to each other.)

-

(Her papi always told her to trust her gut, and here, her gut was right, because somehow, she finds herself seeing more and more of Lena with every passing week.

She doesn’t mind.)

-

When Alex first invites her to a meal, Maggie blinks, before a smile starts spreading across her face.

It’s exciting, a bit, because nobody’s ever really offered that to her before. Ever since she’s been at school, she’s always sat with Tomas, his friends, and the Vasquez twins, as well as a few other Gryffindors. She’s never sat with anyone outside of her house, whereas she knows Alex’s friends are a mix of them all, reds and blues and yellows and green.

She says yes right away, and that afternoon, she finds herself following Alex and Lucy to lunch. Lucy scoots over to make room for her, and she falls into the empty seat. Across from her, looking surprised but a little bit delighted is Lena.

“Hey Maggie,” she greets, and Maggie grins, lopsided.

“Hey Luthor,” she replies.

She supposes she shouldn’t really be shocked however, because she’s seen Lena all over the school with Alex’s younger sister Kara, as if they were attached at the hip.

(She also notes that said younger sister is currently looking at her with an odd glint in her eye, and her smile seems cracked on the edges, like she doesn’t mean it.

Whatever’s wrong, however, will end up fine by dinner, because when she sits down, Kara beams at her, and at her side, Lena hums like a pleased cat.)

-

(Maggie loves her older brother. She’s looked up to Tomas since she was a kid.

When he tells her to be careful with the company she’s begun to keep, the Luthor she’s been hanging out with, she has to fight from sneering at him. It’s a reaction she’s never really had to him before.

Whatever about her friends possessed him to say something, whatever it was that bubbled inside her, she decides it doesn’t really matter anymore, not when he graduates this year.)

 

 

_fourth._

Alex is flirting with her.

Maggie notices it right away, from the moment she gets onto the train and slouches into the seat beside the Ravenclaw. The most surprising part of it all is that it isn’t surprising, because somehow, there’s something disturbingly natural about flirting with Alex and having it tossed right back to her.

At first, she’ll admit: it scares her. Maggie’s already come to terms with her sexuality, can call herself gay and is still able to look at herself in the mirror, but there’s something completely different about the idea of a girl liking her back. It’s dizzying, overwhelming, to think about the possibility of… something with Alex.

(But no matter how much it makes her head spin, it also makes her _want._ )

-

Maggie would be able to see the shift between Kara and Lena right away. It starts with the way Kara looks at James, which everyone notices, and the way Lena looks at Kara, which only Maggie seems to pick up on, something she blames on heteronormativity, really.

She catches up with Lena after dinner one night, and the two of them walk back towards the dungeon in silence, even when Maggie passes the hallway that would take her back to her dorm.

“Kara has a crush on James,” Maggie states, because she knows it’s what they’re both thinking, and Lena nods.

“Sorry kid,” she adds, because she understands how rough it must be, to feel that way about your best friend, but when Lena stops dead and turns to look at her, she freezes.

“Why are you sorry?”

It registers to Maggie, then, that Lena doesn’t even know herself.

“Sometimes it can be hard when your friend is in a relationship and you aren’t,” she explains, trying to force out the first thing she can think of, and before Lena can question her, she excuses herself and turns around to book it back to the Gryffindor common room.

For a good long while, they don’t talk about it again. The conversation disappears after that night, and as far as Maggie’s aware, Lena forgets about it completely. It turns out that Maggie really is the only person aware of the girl’s feelings for Kara, because even Lena herself doesn’t seem to realize it. At first, at least.

(Maggie’s there for the exact moment it hits Lena, and it goes like this:

A regular dinner. Kara going on about something, anything. Her hands wave and she’s smiling. Beside her, Lena’s simply staring, smiling. But then, her face changes, lips dropping, and there’s a dull, aching sort of shock in her eyes. She knows.)

The second Kara stops speaking, Lena stands up, excusing herself under the pretense of a Magical Theory paper before disappearing. She leaves calmly, almost cold, but Maggie recognizes the look in her eyes and she knows, too. Kara watches her go with furrowed brows, like she knows something’s wrong, but she bites her lip before returning to the conversation, a little more subdued.

Lena misses breakfast the next morning, and at lunch, she’s still missing. Barry tells them she didn’t show up for Muggle Studies, either, and Kara’s lips twist into a worried frown. Across the table, she makes eye contact with Cat, who’s looking at her with one eyebrow raised as she glances at Kara once, pointedly. The blonde doesn’t notice, and Maggie sighs, head tilted forward, like a small nod of admission.

After they’ve finished eating, Cat grabs her by the elbow.

“The password for the Slytherin dungeon is Bloody Baron,” she says. “After that dreadful ghost. Now please, go drag Lena’s sorry little ass out of her bed and force her to go to her next class before Kiera has a heart attack.”

Maggie snorts, despite herself, and heads off to the dungeons. When she murmurs the password to the door, there’s a pause before it opens, almost like it’s hesitating. Behind it, there’s a set of stone stairs, and she holds the railing as she makes her way down. She’s never seen the inside of another house’s common room, and looking around, she’s grown a greater appreciation for her own.

A student looks up when she enters, a mix of confusion and irritation. “How did you get in?” She asks.

“I knew the password,” Maggie replies. “Which way are the girl’s dorms? For third-years?”

The girl hesitates, before pointing towards one of the hallways. “The first through fourth year dorms for girls are down that way,” she answers. Maggie thanks her, receiving a small half-smile in response before she starts her way down the hall. Some of the doors are cracked open, and she finds Lena inside one of those, curled under the covers on her side. Maggie takes a couple steps forward, leans against the doorway as she knocks on the frame. After a moment, Lena rolls over, blinks in surprise when she sees Maggie.

“You aren’t sick,” Maggie says, and Lena goes stiff, snaps at her. She’s looking for a fight, trying to distract herself, but Maggie refuses to give her one. Instead, she simply states the truth they both know, and Lena deflates like a helium balloon, head ducked like she’s ashamed.

“I- I don’t know what to do,” she whispers, wet eyed, as Maggie takes a seat on the bed beside her.. “I- Kara’s my best friend and… And I’m a Luthor, I can’t be _gay_ , imagine what my mother would say? She’d crucify me for this.”

“I’m sorry, kid,” Maggie replies, because Lena just sounds so defeated,. “I can’t help you with your mom; I’m still trying to figure that one out myself. But what I can say that trying to be something you aren’t isn’t worth it. You need to accept who you are, because this isn’t something that you can change, or force away. This is who you are.”

Lena takes a deep breath in, allows Maggie to slide closer, and drops her forehead onto the older girl’s shoulder. “Thanks Maggie,” she murmurs, and Maggie scratches her fingers across Lena’s scalp in response, feeling her relax.

“I’m always here if you need me,” she says, and she means it.

-

Alex is still flirting with her, and now Maggie’s getting a little frustrated.

Something changes about it, because now, when Alex says things, they ripple with _intent_. She can feel it now, the way Alex looks her. It’s like her stare has a weight, a physical presence that Maggie can feel.

And really, Maggie’s been trying to step back, let Alex make decisions, make the moves, making sure that the other girl really wants this, but Maggie’s sick of messing around, and she’s sick of being scared of girls. And she is so sick of the way Alex keeps looking at her _like that_ without doing anything about it, so she solves the riddle outside the Ravenclaw dorms, storms up to Alex’s room, and barges in without knocking,

There’s a thousand questions in Alex’s eyes, but they’ll have time for answers in a minute, because Maggie is on a mission, and without saying anything else, she’s leaning over Alex and their mouths are pressed together. After a minute, a hand comes up to cradle the back of Maggie’s neck, and something inside her soars, because Alex is kissing her back and _oh_ , this is what sparks feel like.

“I’m tired of playing games,” she breathes, leaning back, and absolutely delights in the grin that lights up Alex’s face as she reaches up to pull Maggie down on top of her.

-

(She decides to tell her family about Alex over the summer.

After all, she’s happy. How could they fault her for being happy?)

 

 

_fifth._

A week before the start of school, she sits down at the table with her father as a member of the family, but she doesn’t leave as one.

Her father _sneers_ at Alex’s name, and when she says girlfriend, he goes a quiet sort of livid. Without speaking, he stands from the table, pulls Maggie to her feet by her collar, and shoves her towards her room. A minute later, he’s throwing a suitcase at her.

“Papi, I already have a trunk for school,” she protests, voice wavering, because she knows what it’s really for, even if it stings.

“This isn’t for school, Margarita,” he spits, and the way he growls her name makes her sick. “This is because this summer is the last time you will ever be welcomed into this home. After you are dropped off at the Platform, you will never be allowed back. I don’t ever want to see you again after that.”

“But I’m your daughter,” she tries.

He glances at her over her shoulder, but he turns away, stepping out into the hallway and refusing to look at her as he speaks.

“Jamie is my daughter,” he says. “You are a homosexual.”

(She packs and she cries, not necessarily in that order.)

-

(The whole week before school, her family doesn’t look at her.

A deathly quiet settles over the entire house. They don’t set a place for her at meals, they don’t speak to her, they don’t anything. Her father refuses to acknowledge her presence, save for way his fingers dig into his palms whenever she’s around. Her mother, as silent and hateful as her father, leaves the leftovers from dinner out for her in silence. Even Tomas, her loving older brother, shoves past her in the hall and mutters slurs under his breath.

Even Jamie doesn’t talk to her, but when she looks at Maggie, her big brown eyes look sad, and confused, like she doesn’t understand at all what’s going on.

Maggie thinks that’s the worst part.)

-

When they get to school, she doesn’t tell Alex for over a week.

The whole time, it eats at her. Mostly, because she’s still hurting, still grieving, over the loss of a family she’d thought would always love her. Now, the remnants of her life are packed in a suitcase on her dorm room floor, and she’s pretending like everything is fine, like her chest isn’t aching all the time.

She cracks, of course, because a fake sort of happiness isn’t sustainable. She breaks down in the middle of a simple conversation, where Alex is talking about the summer and her mom and, _oh yeah, Maggie, she wants to meet you_. She loses it right there, to Alex's confusion, but the sobs welling in her throat refuse to be tampered down at this point. Alex blinks once, a little stunned, but when Maggie continues to cry, she reaches forward and wraps the shorter girl in her arms, murmuring soft words in her ear.

"What's wrong, Brown Eyes?" She asks, once Maggie's calmed down enough to speak.

"They hate me," Maggie chokes out. "My father, I- I told him about us and he- he kicked me out. He told me no daughter of his was gay, and he kicked me out. He kicked me out."

"Oh, baby," Alex whispers, pulling Maggie closer. "I'm so sorry."

"S'not your fault," Maggie whispers, pressing her nose into Alex's neck, fists gripping her robes. "I love you."

Alex pauses, thinking, and then- "I love you, too."

(It still hurts, but Alex holds her tighter, like she's trying to fill all the cracks in Maggie's chest with her warmth, and it all feels like she's going to be okay, one day.)

-

Maggie puts herself back together just in time for Lena to fall apart.

That's what it feels like, anyway, because suddenly, Kara's dating Mike, a fourth year Gryffindor, and Lena's disappeared from the table. Maggie doesn't really even get a chance to ask her what's wrong, but she thinks she can piece a little bit of it together, because Lena is gone and even with Mike sitting beside her, his arm over her shoulders, Kara still looks like a kicked puppy, with her sad, sad blue eyes.

She's starting to get worried, because Lena must be avoiding the Great Hall, and not eating, but just when she's ready to sneak her way back into the Slytherin Dungeon, Lena's back in her usual spot beside Kara, grinning, if her eyes still look a little sad.  
Maggie holds out, though, because she knows Mike won’t last. She can see that look in Kara’s eyes, and even if nobody else does, she knows what it means.

-

When Professor M’orzz comes around to ask students whether or not they intend to stay at school over the holidays, Maggie pauses for a second.

She can’t go home for Christmas. Her father was very clear about never wanting her to come back, and she’s confident that if she were to even get on that train, there’d be nobody waiting for her at the station.

Professor M’orzz clears her throat to get Maggie’s attention, and she swallows the lump in her throat as she tells the woman that yes, she’s going to stay at Hogwarts over the holiday. Her Potions teacher pats her on the shoulder with a sympathetic smile before moving on, and Maggie takes a deep breath and pushes it aside, pretending to forget about it.

She finds out that Lena’s staying one night at dinner from Kara, who is trying very hard to convince Lena that to let her stay, too, so that the other girl doesn’t have to be alone. Maggie cuts her off to add that she’s staying, too, in an attempt to help Lena out, but all she really does is get Alex involved, both her and Kara now offering to stay.

The debate goes on for almost a whole day, until Maggie points out that if they both skipped out on the holiday, their mom would be all alone. This turns into an arguement over who has a better reason to stay, until Alex and Kara get so tired of it that they’re both able to be convinced to go home.

When the carriages leave to take most of the students home for Christmas break, Lena and Maggie stand together as they watch them go, frozen in place even after everyone’s long gone while Maggie desperately tries to pretend she doesn’t miss her family like crazy.

(Christmas with Lena is warm and bright, and even if her family wants nothing to do with her, Maggie realizes that as long as she has her friends with her, she’s going to be okay.)

 

 

_sixth._

An owl comes bearing a letter with her name on it to the Danvers home, and it’s heartwarming to realize that out of everyone, she’s the only one surprised. Alex, Kara, and Eliza act as if it’s natural, for Maggie’s mail to come to their home.

When she opens the envelope, a shiny Prefect badge falls into her lap, gleaming in the light. When she sees it, Alex beams, presses a kiss to her cheek.

“Gonna keep me out of trouble, Sawyer?” She teases, and Maggie tips her head back, laughing.

“I guess I am, babe,” she replies, turning the gleaming metal over in her hands. “I guess I am.”

(Her joke, however, ends up moot when another owl comes minutes later carrying a Ravenclaw prefect badge for Alex herself.)

-

The first time she sees Jamie, her breath catches in her throat.

She’d known, of course, that Jamie would be eleven this year, but she pushed it to the back of her mind, choosing to ignore it rather than anything else, because thinking about her family usually brought nothing except for that same sting she felt when her father told her he never wanted to see her again. It’s easier to push those thoughts away than deal with them.

It’s a lot harder to avoid thinking about it when she hears them call out her sister’s name across the Great Hall. She looks up and there Jamie is, all big brown eyes and oversized robes as she clambers up onto the stool.

The hat doesn’t waste any time making a decision, and when it calls out _‘Ravenclaw,’_ it echoes in Maggie’s head. She’s unable to tear her gaze away from Jamie’s face, from the flicker of disappointment and shock that crosses her features as she stands, makes her way towards the table dotted with blue and silver. At the front of the table, Alex is there as one of the prefects to greet her, and even from where she sits, Maggie can see the way her smile wavers.

When Jamie sits down, Alex looks over to where she knows Maggie is sitting, and when they lock eyes, Maggie knows her eyes are blown wide and alarmed, and she wonders if Alex can see the way her hands shake from across the hall.

-

(“Your sister, huh?”

Alex is looking at her, head tilted, but Maggie stares down at their linked hands instead, eyes tracing Alex’s thumb as it skims over her knuckles.

“You’ll look out for her, right?”

“Of course, Brown Eyes. Of course.”)

-

If you asked her, Maggie would admit that one of the reasons she ends up getting so involved in… whatever’s playing out between Lena and Kara is to avoid thinking about Jamie. Considering the girl is only a first year, and in another house, Maggie feels like she sees her everywhere, so if meddling a little in Lena’s love life will help keep her sane, then really, who can blame her?

And it works out well enough, too, because Lena and Kara figure it out not to long into the school year. A large part of that is because Alex gives in and spills the beans, but it’s for the best, because even if they’re sickeningly cute, seeing Lena so happy makes her chest swell with something a bit like pride.

-

Christmas with Lena is as warm as it was last year. Maggie sneaks into the kitchens to get hot chocolate, and the two of them curl up in the Gryffindor common room to drink it. They share Maggie’s bed, too, sleeping back to back, and on Christmas morning, both of their presents are there waiting to be opened, the same way they had been the year before.

After the holidays, though, Alex pulls her aside one night after dinner, wringing her hands together. “I have something to tell you,” she says, and the way her gaze drops to the floor for a moment makes panic flare in Maggie’s chest.

When Alex looks up, though, she must see the fear in Maggie’s eyes, because she quickly backtracks. “No, nothing’s wrong, it’s just-,” Alex stammers. “It’s your sister.”

Maggie freezes. “What’s wrong with Jamie?”

Alex glances away, breathes out. “Last night, I caught her crying in the common room,” she answers. “I asked her what was wrong, and she didn’t want to tell me what happened at first, but she was so upset, and-”

Alex cuts off, and although her eyes are dry, she sounds a little choked up, and she doesn’t continue until Maggie takes her hand and laces their fingers together, squeezing.

“She told me she heard your brother- he called her a disappointment.”

Maggie reels back like she’s been stunned, and when she speaks, her voice is whisper soft. “Tomas said what?”

Alex bites her lip, hard. “She told me that he said both his sisters were disappointments,” Alex finishes. “And that he said you might have been gay, but at least you were a Gryffindor.”

Maggie’s chest boils. Her stomach churns with anger, and she tightens her hands into fists, nails digging into the soft skin of his palm. “How dare he,” she mutters, before repeating it louder. _“How dare he?”_  
  
“Maggie-”

“How _dare_ he?”

She spins around and slams the side of her fist into the wall. The brick is unaffected, but the pain shoots up through her elbow, and it brings her back to herself. Some of the rage simmering in her gut dissipates, and she breathes out, leaning forward to rest her forehead just above the spot she hit only moments ago, warm tears pricking at her eyes. After a moment, Alex reaches out to rest a hand on her back.

“Baby?”

“I’m okay,” Maggie murmurs. “I’m okay. ‘M sorry.”

Alex gives a sad hum. “You don’t have to apologize for anything. _I’m_ sorry this is happening to you.”

Maggie just gives a wet laugh, and when Alex reaches out and tugs Maggie toward her, she goes willingly, dropping her head onto the taller girl’s chest.

“I can’t believe he said that,” she says. “I can’t believe it.”

“She wants to see you,” Alex tells her, one hand combing through Maggie’s hair. “She says she misses you.”

-

(Maggie talks to her sister the next day, face to face for the first time in two years, outside of Ravenclaw tower.

Jamie looks so small in her oversized robes, shifting back and forth on her feet, but she stops in her tracks when she sees Maggie. There’s something so young and fragile in her eyes, and looking at it breaks Maggie’s heart.

“Hey kiddo,” she says, and it sounds almost strangled to her own ears. “Are you okay?”

Jamie’s lower lip trembles, and her big, brown eyes shine with welling tears as she launches herself forward into Maggie’s chest. She wraps her arm around Jamie in an instant, one hand on her back and the other cradling her head.

“Shh, it’s okay,” she soothes, rubbing circles into Jamie’s back. “It’s okay, _te tengo, bicho_ , I got you. I got you.”

Something about it feels like healing.)

 

 

_seventh._

Maggie’s seventh year starts out like this:

She’s at the station, Kara and Alex beside her. Eliza kisses them each on the forehead, wraps them in hugs, and sends them off to board the train. They don’t get very far, though, when something stops her in her tracks.

“Margarita.”

At the sound of her name, her whole name, Maggie spins on her heels, Alex’s hand falling out of hers . When she turns around, her father is standing there, staring at her with his hand clamped on Jamie’s shoulder.

 _“Hola, papi,”_ she greets. He is stoic, his face a stone mask, and he looks nothing like the way he did as a child. Instead, he is a cold imitation of the last time she saw him, the day he dropped her at Platform Nine and Three Quarters and told her never to come back.

“Margarita,” he says and his voice is as hard as his eyes, which flicker over to Alex standing at her side. _“Nada ha cambiado, veo._ You are still carrying on while this… girl, then?”

 _“Ella es mi novia, papi,”_ Maggie corrects, bristling at the distaste he directs at Alex. _“Y yo la amo._ Nothing you can say will change that.”

His lip twist into a sneer, disgusted, and his grip on Jamie tightens, knuckles paling, and the girl flinches under his fingers.

 _“Jesucristo, papi_ , I’m happy,” she adds, almost pleading, because this man was her father. This was her dad, the man who bandaged the cuts on her knees and kissed her forehead goodnight when she was still young.. “I’m happy, papi, _¿por qué está tan mal?”_

“The way you’re carrying on is a sin,” he spits. _“Eres una desgracia para la familia, Margarita.”_

“You’re not family at all,” she replies. _“No cuando me tratas así.”_

He fumes, and her lips turn up in a wry smile. “Goodbye, papi.”

As she walks away, Alex’s hand held tight within her own, she can just barely catch the words her father says.

“You stay away from that girl, Jamie,” he says. “She’s not your sister anymore.”

(She bites her lip to keep from crying.)

-

Lena and Kara break up not too long into the school year.

Honestly? Maggie wants to smash her head against the wall. She loves the girl, she really does, but somewhere along the line, Lena convinced herself that she doesn’t deserve to be happy, which frankly, Maggie thinks, is a load of shit.

It’s hard to find a chance to tell her so, though, because Lena takes not only to avoiding Kara, but the rest of them as well. Skipping meals, locking herself away in the Slytherin dungeon, only this time, there’s no Cat Grant to give Maggie the password. She could ask Leslie Willis, sure, but she isn’t sure she’d get an answer out of her.

Instead, she manages to corner Lena one night at dinner, snagging an empty seat across from her without a word. Lena looks like she’s been run ragged, dark circles under her big, green eyes, and Maggie’d be lying if she said she didn’t notice the way her cheeks seemed sharper, a little sunken, a little thinner.

Maggie pretends it’s normal, like this is just any other meal. It’s not, of course, when Lena looks so shocked to see her there that her chest aches. Lena makes a soft joke about Alex hating her, and her voice is so sad, so bitter, that Maggie wants to tear her own hair out.

(After dinner, she collapses into Alex’s arms and tries not to cry. Her stomach churns, a mix of frustration and sadness, because she’s never felt such desperation to be believed when she tells someone she loves them. She doesn’t know why it has to be so hard, why Lena won’t just listen to her, won’t just accept that there are people who care about her, dammit.

“She just… she’s so scared, and she won’t let herself be happy,” she mumbles into Alex’s robes. “Why doesn’t she think she should get to be happy?”

Alex doesn’t respond, and she thinks it’s because neither of them really know, not anymore.)

-

(Lena calls her a couple days into Christmas break.

Well, Barry calls Kara, but it’s her who ends up talking to Lena, so that’s what really matters. The younger girl is nearing distraught, voice breaking as she tries to explain what happened, and all Maggie can think is how unfair it is, how much she wants to punch Lillian Luthor in the face, and how much she wishes she could be with Lena right now. The last thing, at least, they seem to agree on.

“And I know it’s kind of silly,” Lena adds at the end, choking on the last word. “But… but this is the first Christmas we won’t spend together since my third year, and… I miss you.”

“I miss you, too, Lena,” she echoes, because she does, and they both know they’re not just talking about Christmas. They’re talking about the past couple of months, the silence that’s stretched out between them. She misses Lena’s smile, the way she lights up around Kara, and distantly, she realizes just how much of a little sister Lena’s become for her.

“Come back to us,” she says, and three days later, Lena does, folding into Maggie’s arms on the train like she’s been doing it for years.

In a way, Maggie supposes, she has.)

-

Maggie’s seventh year ends like this:

The train pulls away from Hogsmeade station. Maggie sits by the door, and past both Alex and Lucy, she can see them passing rows of green trees, and something in her aches when she realizes she’ll never see this view again. She swallows hard, and it catches Alex’s attention, who leans over and presses a kiss to her cheek, lips lingering there.

On the other side of the compartment, Lena lies with her head back against Kara’s chest, eyes shut and a smile on her face. She remembers, then, that Lena’s coming back home with the rest of them, back to the Danvers, and Maggie wants to cry a little bit more when she thinks about how far they’ve both come. Beside her, Alex leans further into her, nose pressing into her neck, and she rests her cheek on her girlfriend’s head, smiling.

She may be leaving Hogwarts, but she’s taking this family, her family, with her. 

**Author's Note:**

> some things i wanted to explain  
> -tomas was really loving brother when they were younger, to jamie but mostly to maggie. he loved maggie a lot, and when she came out, he was upset and angry. he channeled it all into being angry with maggie, but a lot of his anger, whether he realized it/wanted to acknowledge it or not, was directed at himself and his parents, for turning away from maggie, and he struggles with it sometimes. (maybe,, this might happen,,, to come up again,,, later? _hint hint_ )  
> -my spanish is not the best, but i combined my knowledge with google translate and a list of spanish nicknames. maggie calls jamie ‘bicho’, which means bug in spanish, because when she was younger, their family used to call jamie ‘pequeño bicho’ which means little bug. when maggie says ‘te tengo, bicho,’ she’s saying ‘i got you, bug’.  
> -spanish translations from year seven:  
> “margarita. nothing has changed, i see. you are still carrying on with this girl, then?”  
> “she is my girlfriend, dad, and i love her. nothing you can say will change that.”  
> “jesus christ, dad, i’m happy. i’m happy, dad, why is that so wrong?”  
> “the way you’re carrying on is a sin. you are a disgrace to the family, margarita.”  
> “you’re not family at all. not when you treat me like this.”  
> [also!!!! if you speak spanish fluently, please hmu, i’m trying to work on some other pieces and it’s important to me that maggie’s background & culture is still present, and if i’m going to be writing lines in spanish, i’d like them as accurate as possible]


End file.
